Elizabethan Sonnet Month

King James I

Introduction

James VI & I (19 June 1566 - 27 March 1625) was King of Scots as James VI from 1567 to 1625, and
after the death of Elizabeth, became King of England and Ireland as James I from 1603 to 1625.
Under James, the "Golden Age" of Elizabethan literature and drama continued, with writers such as
William Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Johnson, and Sir Francis Bacon contributing to a flourishing
literary culture. James himself was a talented scholar, the author of works such as Daemonologie
(1597), True Law of Free Monarchies (1598), and Basilikon Doron (1599). Sir Anthony Weldon claimed
that James had been termed "the wisest fool in Christendom", an epithet associated with his character
ever since.